Shut Out - Kody Keplinger
Things are out of control at Hamilton High. A rivalry that started over ten years ago is escalating. What may have started as name calling and taunting has turned into something is getting people hurt.

Lissa is sick of it and she is going to do something about it.

For too long the football and soccer teams have been fighting. The girlfriends of the players are the ones paying the price. They are the ones getting stood up because of a their boyfriends getting hurt during a fight; they are the ones being left alone in the car at “make out hill” when their boyfriends run off to chase someone who egged their car; they are the ones with the plan.

Lissa proposes a sex strike and slowly, but surely the other girls agree. One by one they place their hands on a recent issue of Cosmo and take the pledge.

"I hearby swear to abstain from all forms of sexual activity. This includes but is not limited to anything involving body parts below the belt. That’s either party’s belt. Oh, and second case is outlawed, too. Nothing, um, under the shirt…I’ll stand my ground, even in the toughest of times, and will resist temptation until the rivalry is put to an end."

The girls are sure it will be a quick victory, but as the weeks drag by and the boys don’t give in, tension run high.

Are the boys going to learn anything by being subjected to this punishment? Even a better question might be, what are the girls going to learn from dishing the punishment out?

SHUT OUT is another great look into the mind of a mostly typical teenage girl. While not as endearing as Bianca from THE DUFF, Lissa does pull at your heart strings. Keplinger has a knack for painting realistic pictures of high school and the many characters that walk the halls of the thousands of buildings across the U.S. I can’t wait to see what she come up with next.